Community Corner

1959: Rowdy Teens Rampage at the Drive-In!

News from the April 2, 1959, edition of the Lemon Grove Review.

Big Raid at the Ace: Billy Danielson, projectionist at the Ace Drive-In, had just cued reel one of "Attack of the Giant Leeches," when a stampede of drunken teens tore past the projection booth en route to Grove Street. A mass raid by a dozen plainclothes Sheriff's deputies was underway after two weeks of planning and surveillance.  

At issue was the rowdiness and violence of teen patrons, who usually outnumbered adults two to one. On the night of the raid, more than 350 teens, ages 13 to 19, were drinking, fighting and yelling while nearly 150 adults complained—and three desperate lot boys tried to confiscate beer cans. (At a salary of 50 cents an hour what was that job like?) 

When a teen threatened to pull a gun from his glove box, deputies realized they must blow their cover or risk mayhem.  

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Ace manager Al Dougherty shouted, "The law's here," into the loudspeaker, prompting kids to throw a "tin hailstorm" of beer cans from their cars, some striking the lot boys, who dove for cover.

Some adults applauded while others yelled obscenities as deputies handcuffed 11 juveniles caught with cases of beer, along with several twentysomethings hoisting bottles of hard liquor. The stampeding kids vanished into the night, though deputies later tried to follow a "trail of vomit along Broadway."  

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A 14-year-old girl and an 18-year-old boy, prone on a car seat, were removed and taken to Juvenile Hall on a morals charge.

Dougherty had instituted car checks for beer cans in December after drunken teens began wrecking speakers, littering and interrupting the movie. Local churches protested the lurid lineup of "B" movies featuring G-men, horror, and aliens from Mars. Lemon Grove United Methodist Church even offered to buy a block of tickets if Dougherty would show "better family fare," a tacit acknowledgment that partying patrons would stay away in droves if forced to view "Lassie Come Home."  

"Attack of the Giant Leeches" started 20 minutes late, but wasn't worth the wait. When a game warden and his girlfriend learn that monster leeches are living in caves under a local swamp, they buy dynamite to rid the town of a fate worse than death—but not before a dying moonshiner with sucker wounds tells them the swamp is now full of bodies that had been lunch for leeches. Bernard Kowalski is to blame for this pièce de resistance, topping even "Night of the Blood Beast," his charmer released in 1958.

Ah, the Fifties. Suddenly Mom and Dad each had a car and so did Junior. The rise of "teen rampage" movies and drive-ins coincided with the rising tide of kids out late in cars. But let's remember the Ace threw a wide net. Not all of the little rotters bagged in the big raid came from Lemon Grove. Lakeside, Spring Valley, La Mesa, El Cajon and San Diego generously contributed their progeny to the patron pool.

Good Kids: The spring concert at Lemon Grove Junior High featured 220 young musicians in the 80-piece band, 50-piece orchestra and 90-voice choir, performing the music of Beethoven, Gershwin and Berlin. Harry Weisgerber conducted and George Starkey directed the choir. All three ensembles had just performed at the Foothills Area Music Festival and were destined to perform, along with the champion Mount Miguel High Matador, in the Rose Bowl Parade.  

Gigantic Jackpot: Mr. and Mrs. Joe Leone, Colfax Drive, won $680, the biggest win ever in the weekly Friday night drawing of the Lemon Grove Merchants and Boosters Association. The winning ticket was drawn in the parking lot behind Dial Drugs.

The Leones took home 40 percent of $1,700, with $1,000 remaining in the pot for next week and the remaining $20 doled out in $5 increments to four other winners.

The much-anticipated jackpot was smart marketing by local businesses intent on building customer loyalty.  

"The more you shop with us, the more we add to the jackpot," ran a typical ad in the Lemon Grove Review in those prosperous days.

Housewives to the Rescue: Mrs. Lester Peters and Mrs. Joseph Moore, both of Grove Street, smelled smoke and discovered a neighbor, Blaine Coyle, asleep in his burning bed. While Mrs. Peters got water from the kitchen sink, Mrs. Moore called the fire department. Neither woman could rouse Coyle from slumber until they threw cold water on him. As fire trucks pulled up, the women emerged dragging a groggy Coyle, who insisted that nothing was wrong.  

"He was smoking in bed," said veteran fireman Alfred "Cap" Roulo, who was also running for re-election as a fire board commissioner. "He owes his life to these brave women. They deserve a medal."

Vets' Variance Wins:  The VFW Hall on Imperial Avenue (the one with the huge flag mural on the back on modern Lemon Grove Avenue) got a variance from the County Planning Commission to build its 450-seat auditorium with a stage at a cost of $100,000.  The VFW's Hibbard Stubbs said the venue would be available for community groups.

The variance was needed after Imperial Avenue was widened, reducing the VFW property width from 100 feet to 75 feet.

The result was that the VFW needed to build the auditorium 27.5 feet from the center line of Citronella Street instead of the required 47.5 feet. And, said Stubbs, they had to eliminate an "obnoxious, smelly drainage ditch" that ran alongside the easterly property line.

Despite these compelling reasons and the recommendation of their own staff, the commission granted the variance only after requiring the vets to build a retaining wall along the eastern edge of the property after they paid to eliminate the ditch. That wall is there today, the ditch is long gone, and the venue became a go-to place for teen dances, parties, barbecues and more.


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